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Tuesday, May 31, 2011

i've been a fan of dan hillier's work for a couple of years and i've definitely posted a few links to some of his pictures on this blog, moments after seeing the pieces, simply because someone else needed it. then and there. it had to happen. disbelief.

he had a show in brooklyn last april, on the 7th. through cowardice, laziness, excuses, many of the above and more, i didn't go. i know artists don't "break up", but this is exactly the kind of regret i felt when every band i've ever loved has broken up and i know i skipped a show because i'll catch the next one, and so on. pathetic.

buti went on his website this morning after linking in from a show flyer he had. the site is sparse, not much there. but i clicked, randomly, on a piece of the page which appeared to be simply blank, but it yielded something incredible. truly one of the best pieces of work i've seen, both from a written standpoint, but based on the visual artwork as well.

Saturday, May 21, 2011

I understand the need for diversity and that not every kind of art has a definitive style that works within it. Look at the many genres and artists within the medium of music that i have fallen deeply in love with. Common to Fairweather to Misery Signals to Tim Hecker.

There's a level, though, that has just been illustrated to me in a solo train ride out to Manhattan. You can find the same sort of lesson in any brick wall in almost any urban area, though. To see masterful, quality pieces of graffiti dominating a wall or bridge only to be surrounded by juvenile go-hards is almost insulting to the artist. Are we even having the same conversation?

And i feel this way about a lot of writing that i see out there. It's not that i expect anyone or everyone to stop putting words to paper or out into the internet. But some of the pieces that get published in the world of journalism and reporting seem to act as punishment for all of the words that never will. You can see the lazy and sensational dominating the landscape, the same as the quick and rushed lines of the all-but-anonymous initials hacked up as if in a dare or in a fit of bravado.

We can't all be Hunter S. Thompson and reinvent the game, but we can all at least write to an audience we'd love to respect us. And an audience that we'd like to respect, alike. The less quality that's become demanded of the writing community, the less i want that to be my audience. And for just how long can you whittle down the interested and interesting until it's all become chain-gangs of gossip and gasplines that are accentuated with exclamation points?

Saturday, May 14, 2011

there is a new project I’m going to be starting on once this weekend is over. it’s going to debut on a different blog which I can’t yet register. I’m pretty excited about it. seems like it’s going to be hilarious. it’ll be productive as well, once I can actually start getting a roll on it. but knowing my attitude on the subject, it’s going to remain extremely funny (at least to myself) for a good amount of time. my main issue with the progress of the project will be that I tend to have little to no consistency in long term projects. and while this won’t be solely a writing project, I’m depending on some kind of inner inspiration and drive to keep this one going. it seems that it’s going to be drawing some energy of my two favorite mediums as of right now to inspire the theme. enough vague tapping. I’ll be revealing it as soon as I’m able.

i woke up in the midst of the thickest pool of REM sleep extract around 4:14 this morning. I reached for the dream journal, but i instantly started feeling the phantoms scattering towards the seams of the walls. I backed off. laid back down, started swimming through it. it felt like a good trip on the verge of going bad. the way the capes of the bottoms of your friends’ shirts start to turn from jellyfish to leeches. I felt it turning bad, way wrong. from a spring sticking out in my atrocious temper [wow. I forgot the word I need.] temporary [how does that happen] bed. let me retype. --- from a spring sticking out in my atrocious temporary bed, one of my ribs fell asleep, so I had that odd numbsparkle feeling in my side. what the whispers said is that there is now a hole in my system, all the excess spillage filling the skin of my gut, spreading necrosis. a piece of my brain is listening, reacting. pulse is rising, breathing is getting hasty. I’m watching this happen, patiently. I watch myself in the third person start to sing. some loud, operaface. and I step back slowly and I see I’m resting in, first, the husk of a dead snake, and then it turns into my rib cage, and I’m curled up in it like a bed of crescent moon. still singing. and I’m suddenly tasting what my mouth tastes like, getting nudged that it’s because I’m slipping into coma due to the death the insides are dealing. I push and push to sleep, letting the arms and hands of demons become a canopy.

i wrote my dreams down every night for over a year. whether in my phone, on this laptop, in a notebook. whatever the case was. I compiled them twice, passed them around. I started to notice though, that I would use this recollection of my dreams as a form of creative outlet. and while it seems to have a bit of help in getting the fingers moving every day, it does take a bit out of actual work that I am creating of my own accord. because, really, I can’t take credit for any of the dreams I catch. it’s just mindwar journalism. I want to take some of the visions and interactions I have under the veil and use it in fiction, or have it inspire me to reach out a bit. to communicate it a bit more in real time. I don’t see myself stopping the documenting, but I definitely see it as becoming more source material than standing on its own as a body of work.

also, this was a big deal to me.http://www.nettserier.no/jellyvampire/1304892000/

Thursday, May 12, 2011

the new world hasn't given us a chance at all.waves, the giant innocent results of the moon and earth and orbits.it's not that the planet is fighting back;that'd mean it cared about us at all.it didn't occur for us to document.it would have happened had we never named the days after the myths,it would have happened with or without these cities in place.

Wednesday, May 11, 2011

started talking to some friends about where our influences come from, and why we create the way that we create. looking at art, reading our writing, you can always see that there are various heroes voices coming through the cracks. we're not creating art in-character, and taking their voice and patching things together the way that we think they would. no, no way.

the best way that i can explain it for myself is through the way i found more strength in my poetic voice through hearing cedric's words in at the drive-in songs (later and more specifically, in mars volta tracks) and then reading burroughs' naked lunch. i didn't take any specific cues from them. i didn't see what kinds of words they took, i didn't follow their stanzas and replace syllables that fit. i found strength in their aesthetic. literally, and i've explained this several times to anyone who will listen, they made me feel okay to write the way i was writing. having a new voice is exciting, and innovative, but to be writing the way that i sometimes write and have no one able to understand it, to have comments like, "it just seems like you're throwing words at a board and seeing what sticks" is pummeling. so disheartening.

but when i got that form of acceptance through reading other people's art, to see abstractions that i have been drawn to, both internally and externally, it's like a new awakening. you keep going. you find your place. like being raised by wolves but happening onto a township of sympathizers.

but it's something inside of us that's arranged for inspiration both within and without. somehow during our creation as the person we are today, a decision was made within our hearts that we will find genius in various artistic aesthetics. whether it is raw realism, fully abstract perception, the old, the new, broken, rusted, minimalist... any of it. and when we have creative hands or voices, we are naturally drawn to that medium or that style. it's why we like the bands we like or the paintings we admire. even sentences spoken or sense of humor. it's what makes us laugh or shudder or dismiss.

if someone were forcing me to draw a still-life or photograph a portrait, i couldn't do it and be happy with it. i'd still see those products as flawed. no matter how high they ranked within that genre, they'd look the same to me. they feel fraudulent to me. as i'm sure masters in that genre would feel about things that i've loved, and things that i've created and had pride in.

i've found myself so uncomfortable in my own skin these todays,want to pile my wardrobe in an oilfire.i'm finding it so easy to ignore the tools of self-improvement.shoveling spades of soil onto full-length mirrors.

Tuesday, May 03, 2011

small pieces of light coming together. if you forget what you're seeing, just trust the mathematics.old picture houses with the red curtains dense with lead. level two programmed reality: both picture and weight.wittling and tensioning the taut-wire social, knowing every man in every portrait.serial numbered blood stains.lines and lines (the queues) of visitation to dip your plume or splinter off.light and splashed glitter in cubed galactic fuckmess.

some centuries old astral body generating out its last nitrogen masterpiece,adapting and suiciding, novasploding in a musty staircase with peeling plasterwalls.no longer a slave to probability, our agent, no, just a force eloping altogether.disproving the proof that there is no ether, cloaked in the guise of protoplasm.

crying eyes of a prostitute in a pig's arms catches him while she lays hopeless.careless reverse cowboy; lazy je'taime, prayers and prayers for premature ejaculatebut it never comes.

agent passes namelessly.

the renounced whore and the supernova, one and one.

color as a mathematic act of man's observation. otherwise, who'd know better.off and on practice of a grand piano.hammer to the tune of minimized bone.

numbered exposures.the generalization of men acting illogically in the presence of their spraying seed,fathers developing negatives of their sons.microphones descending on their lives to broadcast individual choices to a God of Reasoned Audience.applause and praise to answers from control centers.canned approval sounds.

a theory of shooting men in self defense, a definition to slower the distribution of men at war.a seated theater of roulette enemies, religion of the drawn number.in the balcony [N, NW] she stares on, her number branded beneath the butterfly of her breasts,her nakedness pure carnal and digital definition, a three pieced numeral, her pure socratic formula to be extracted by some earnest, inquisitive robin of a boy who she will refuse and refuse until he turns away from her, defeated.warded off by venetian masks.silhouette fades as the police approach while she complains of the haste of lust and the death of sensuality.against the image of baton movement, she laments the piercing of his lightness.with tender orbitals, she softens her vision on him, wipes out his entire race, patterns of relief of all the sweetness he's ignored.a million dead in the city, boarded up or no.

i began this in november as part of nanowrimo, and i was quasi-inspired, but i've gone back to it and can't really make head or tail of it. so here you go internet. ingest and antimatter.

-=-

i guess every time i heard a new record, i sort of expected it to be prepackaged for me the way i'd set everything up for myself when i'd made it for myself. that's not so much to say that i expected to like everything, but generally when i was younger, i saw that if something had come into my path, it came there for a reason. my friends and i, we were all the same: same classes, same teachers, mostly same crushes. here and there, we'd catch a magazine article to throw out there in some vague way, to get the others interested, so we could spread the mass appeal. and generally, if it didn't sit well with one of us, we'd all just give it up. unanimous, or nothing at all.

unanimous or tuesday.

another girl walked up and asked for a small, and i'm sitting there thinking about how it's too big for her, she probably has a boyfriend. or body issues. "you sure?" i hold up the shirt, all plantationed with fold. light blue, got some weird alien on it, i don't know what i was thinking. it was such a good idea when i started it.

"ten right?"

she hands me the twenty. another fucking twenty. go into the cash box, break out a five and five singles. running low on all sorts of small bills. but it's all good. we played an hour ago, there's no way we're selling anymore of these things. no tip, nothing in the jar. she walks away. doesn't matter that she's 15.

i miss my cat. i miss jerry o. i miss our shows at home. but it's always the same. i get something started, i get hyper motivated on it, half-ass it enough to blame it on excuses that i make up as i go. then here comes the band or a show or an out of state show, and there goes that. oh well. never gonna finish it.

is that me? no way.i smell like that?shit no.

what's up with these bands that we're playing in front of? not we per say. it's the four of those guys. but still, i see these locals who bring out the kids and it's all the same kinds of bands that make it big, the kinds of bands that show up late, load-in while we're breaking our shit down. gives you an utter distaste for the state of music and where we're at these days. makes you want to change it all up. drop music altogether, the solo projects, the side projects, the out of state shows, the flyering, the cold van rides.

"how much?"

“ten for a shirt, ten for a CD, one for a sticker, one for two buttons, three for a comp, twenty for all of the above.”

when she replies she only has a twenty, i say that’s perfect, she can grab it all. she only wants a shirt. i don’t have change. she says she’ll be right back. she never comes back. i should have shaved.

this is all unreal. take me home.

alex comes over to me, eyes wide. “dude.”

“the worst.”

he holds up three fingers, mouths the words three, two, one, then pantomimes palm-muting and open chords. out of this hallway, and in the main catering area, 5 kids play your standard 4/4 breakdown. i bite my bottom lip, my eyebrows roll together, and shake my head: nonononono.

he’s brought me a beer, something gold and in a plastic cup. it’s cold and tastes like cold. “man. when are we leaving? oh, and i need change.” he gives me a fucked five and a couple of singles which are helixed together, saying keep it. i see that same girl that was just over here, the one with the straight black hair, perfect nose, and delia’s jeans, walking by in some other band’s t-shirt. i clap in her direction, loudly, three times in a row.

“give it another band, man. we aren’t doing anything tomorrow, who cares when we get home? the kids in crash court are kind of cool. we’re trying to work out a show trade, have them come out with us so we can get some shows back here.”

“crash court!”

“whatever, man. they’re cool. they’re doing it for the right reasons. i can totally see them hanging if they came through the area. and if our tour comes through here, we’ll totally need a place to stay.”

“so we’ll stay with crash. court.?”

“dick!”

an hour later, we’re packing it all up. alex and i are bringing his drums into the van, piece by awkward piece. i’m starving. these are the last pieces we’re putting in there, tetrissing it all up against other things, the cymbals making ugly sounds against the glass. i tap the bell on the top of his ride with my finger nail a couple times once it’s all inside. jayson and bauer are hanging up front, done with it all, just exhausted. they’re sitting in silence, bauer’s hands busy texting friends or his girlfriend back home, the glow making his face some monitortone. jayson is playing drums with the cap’n jazz record on the steering wheel, waiting for us to be done with the arrangement. “where’s jarrod at?!”

i picture him leaning up against some corkboard in the hall getting a number or some myspace/facebook information from some young little sceney incident that we won’t stop hearing about for months. his hair all leto’d and righteous, his smile taken out of some billboard ad for chewing gum. this fuckin’ guy. but sure enough, he comes running right back out to us through the dark, across the parking lot, keys and belt and whatever else jingling and flopping around. “ohhhhhh!!!” he says as he throws me a high-five. “what’s good now? just heading back? who’s around?”

“tina’s having people over but they’ll be gone by the time we get back. she said we could stop by but,” he starts to read the digitalogue to us slowly, “it might be like too late to do anything like worth it or whatever.” the words spaced apart that make this chick sound dumber than she actually is, which is a stretch to accomplish. sweetheart, though. gotta love her.

i shrug, hands shoulder high. “gonna go home, gonna jerk off, and that’s all i’m gonna do.” i don’t wait for him to catch the reference. “nah man, i don’t know i’m just over this place man. bands were a joke dude. can’t believe you guys agreed to play here AGAIN.”

“here we go!”

“no, seriously! i’m serious! i’m serious! how could we drive four hours van slam-packed, out of the city through all of that traffic, get here, unload, play in front of fifteen kids, all of them too young to really understand what it is we’re really out here to accomplish...”

“yeah? and what are WE out here to accomplish, collie? what message are you trying to send?” bauer speaks up.

“...nothin’ man. nothin’.”

“fuckkk thaat. fuckkk thaat. listen, me and collie are getting in his car, driving back home. i’m taking it easy gonna finish up my own personal miike marathon week i’ve been having, you’re all totally welcome to come, got a couple drinks there waiting for me. tomorrow, practice at 4, then whatever. let’s do something good.”

“all about it. i love it. jarrod, drop me off at tina’s on the way back? bauer, you coming?”

“whatever, dude. i’ll come. whatever.”

alex throws some fists around the van, knuckles hitting knuckles in love. you can see the callouses on his hands. “gentlemen! get home safely!”

i throw up the peace sign while walking back to my car, quiet and brown, chilling and waiting for me.

alex jogs up next to me, laughing. “you didn’t take that personally, did you?”

“ahhh, not really, i don’t know. wasn’t ready for it i guess.”

“he was just fucking with you, man. kinda. i don’t know. maybe not. but i get it. just gotta let the kids do what they’re doing man. this isn’t like some kind of competition to get accepted into NASA. it’s music, dude. some people are gonna get it, and get buried in it, dude. face first, feet sticking out, just disappear in it. others, i mean, shit, people are just gonna wanna hang out around it. it doesn’t make it wrong, man. you can’t like music the right way or the wrong way. just take it easy, man. you’re gonna be that washed up, jaded merch guy forever aren’t you?”

i can’t believe how accurate that statement is. it terrifies me. and all i say is “psh.” air coming out of a deflated tire.

we listen to saves the day the entire way home, first through being cool three times through. barely audible. then he throws in a burnt copy of can’t slow down right before passing out.

i’m the dick.oh my god.i’m the dick.

--

i'm sitting at home. it's the afternoon and it's in the 50s, something cold enough to keep me from wanting to go out there. i'm eating what i guess you could call lunch. a hot pocket with some tortilla chips. i'm already thinking about heating up the second one.

they're all at practice. i thought it best not to show up after bauer's comment. such a shot in the dark. how long has he felt this way, how do the others feel about this, when did i get this distinction? was it just one comment?

i watch this guy ride by on a bike outside. tall, skinny, red scarf, brown hat, blue peacoat looking thing. guy probably talks big about the bands he loves because he has to, only sees obscure movies because that's what makes his little clique go around. i think of how he's probably headed to a record store to buy something to say someone's never heard of it before. maybe pick up a show flyer just in case any of the band's makes it big this way he can say he knew about it when.

there's nothing to do today. everything is organized. books are alpha'd, DVDs and blu-rays, CDs and vinyl are alpha'd. i could be going nuts on some new flyer layouts i have in my head, but i don't want to use the same images that i've been finding on the internet already. i have to make a trip to the library and get some good scans. i should do some research on what artists i'm looking for, or at least the type. i don't have a library card. i don't have mail from this address either. i think i need one to get a card for this location. what a wash.

i check the phone, no new texts.no missed calls.

"when're you fags done? ollie's tonight?"

i stare at the text for fifteen seconds after i type it, try to figure out something else to throw in to make the invite more appealing. fuck it, i send it.

i take a shower, thinking the entire time about the process of godhead deciding they want to cover the beatles' eleanor rigby. which band member came up with the idea. how they decided to create the backdrop for the song which was essentially completely devoid of what made the song so distinct. they kept the hook, they kept the vocal fixtures. i would love to see mccartney's reaction to it. i'm sure he's heard it, actually. what a moment that must have been. i'd love to see godhead, all dressed up in their goth splendor, walking up to paul's house with a single CD meant for sitting down in a parlor in front of a living legend, one of the last remaining beatles, and playing that song for him.

no text back when i get out. i throw on the good the bad and the ugly to pass the time. just picked it up on blu-ray. the remastering is fine, but it doesn't match up to what HD or blu-ray should really be. still a fantastic movie no less. eastwood kills it.

it's 4:30.

i play madden against some kid online who's unbearably cheap. he uses the colts so i knew i'd lose from the start. i send him a voice message saying i would have beat him if he played the game right. he sent something back but didn't listen. deleted.

i sit in front of my computer, and open up firefox. ready to roll through some of the band's blog updates. talk a little about last night. i go through a few of my google reader articles. things about bugs that don't dance the way the bugs before them used to dance. things about the way the white house was built. something about a new sci-fi shooter. a video with a dog. i don't care about any of it, really, once i'm done reading about it. it'd be interesting if i could carry some of it with me when i got out of the room. my biggest contribution to conversations of the obscure is often "oh yeah, i heard of that." i have the info to turn that around, but what's the point.

i got my mind on better things.

let me check facebook real quick, i want to see if anyone commented on that picture. while i'm on there i can actually upload a couple of pictures that were sent to the band's e-mail address last night after the show while we were driving home. oh my god, i can't believe charlie's status update is literally talking about election day like it's something important.

"we can already get married. leave the voting to the gays!"

people are definitely gonna dig that. awesome.

after hitting "older posts" a few times, i can't even remember what i came on here to do. it's 7:15?! what?! where did my day go?

what was i looking to do on here, anyway?

i've been complaining about not having enough time to read too much lately. let me jump back into the garland. i'll figure it out.

11:30 comes by.no call. no text.no one likes my facebook comment.

--

i woke up at 6:30. alarm's set for 7. fuck it, i'll get up.

no text.no call.no one likes my facebook comment.

new e-mail from amazon.com, borders.com, gamestop.com, miso.

turn off the alarm, shower, dress, warm up the car.still have can't slow down on in the car.

it picks up midway through three miles down. "letting it rain for hours" conley skipsays. i heard this guy was gay. what ever happened to that? whatever, i hope he's happy. for all the stuff the guy's band has been through, all the lineup changes, he still remains a legend. i still buy records after stay what you are came out even though they've all kind of sucked. all these feelings he's singing about, whether it's for a guy or a girl, for himself, for some extraterrestrial, so be it. guy has these legitimate tears lined up forever.

unbelievable how inefficient most of these drivers on the road are.

pull in, same parking spot every day. got an hour to open. i know at least one person's going to knock on the door instead of dropping their video through the slot. always a question, always an excuse. fat beth closed like shit last night. spend about fifteen minutes making up for her mistakes, count in, all set up. leave to go get coffee next door, and our first windowknocker is standing there as i'm walking out.

"hey, this is a day late..."

"yeah, sorry. unfortunately if it's not back by midnight last night, there's nothing we can do about it."

"that's okay, we fell asleep last night watching it."

"did it suck?"

"it wasn't BAD. not what i expected though."

"...happens."

wordless, she drops the movie in the slot. i think about it sloppily laying in the bin. i have to put it back when i get back after i just made everything perfect. as she drives off, we meet eyes through her passenger window. what does she want from me? i raise my hand in what looks like one of those native american "HOW" motions, which could mean bye, or thank you, or acknowledged, or stop, or even HOW.

coffee, back to work, put the movie away (which was a romantic comedy SEQUEL; what did she EXPECT?), and unlocked the doors to another fantastic day. the owner, brian, came in around noon, i told him all about beth's close. he said it was fine, he'll talk to her about it.

i think about godhead talking to her about it. in a parlor. with eleanor rigby playing in the background.

--

i tried sleep but it doesn't work. at this point, i'll usually think of some event far off that is tedious and meaningless and mechanical, like sowing a field or counting fiber. i'll try to mentally recreate some painted image, and find brushstrokes to even the sky out. i'll do whatever it takes to calm the hum of restlessness.

what usually holds up the works is thinking about some girl or two that got away, or some new set of friends that i let down. this time, it felt kind of like both. were the guys leaving me? what was i doing wrong?

i can't learn guitar, my fingers are too small. you can't write songs as a bassist. my voice isn't a good singing voice. keyboards take a lot of training. it's not my fault i'm not in the band.

i've found a piece of my friends that i want to nurture and for it to become something of its own organic merit. i want to support it and make it real for them. what others here, those other guys who don't know us, they hear the songs, the result of a family unit. all the hours of the day, all the small talk and small journeys that are actually endless processions formulated down to three minutes and thirty seconds. the passionless turn the page, they skip the track. pick up the needle.

pick up the needle, lay it on the shelf.this room needs work. i have visions, i just need canvases.

quiet phone for two days straight now. i feel sick thinking about it.

it rained tonight, i must have missed it. the cars pass by, they sound more gravelly. i hear tiny wakes.

there are a lot of things that are going okay, but nothing's going well. i should focus on one thing at a time, and dominate each of those endeavors like milestones. i should be working on something always, full of answers, full of a fire that attracts and repels. i should possess a mantra in my comings and goings. there should be The Work and the background.

i have work tomorrow.i'll think more about it then.shit.i work with brian.